It was with some trepidation that the Pedmachine headed to Wembley yesterday. In the same way as just over 24 months ago the radio shows didn’t give City a prayer, Wigan may as well have not turned up. City were overwhelming favourites. One pundit said “The only way I can see Wigan winning is if City have a totally bad match and Wigan get lucky”.
The Pedmachine also considers himself to be a great student of football and to draw a similar analogy, when at the City-United semi-final I saw Fergie’s team go up on the scoreboard, I said to the guy next to me in the gods on level five “We’ve got this – he’s trying to match us up!”
I took a look at the line-up against Wigan in disbelief realizing it was essentially a 4-4-2 where the midfield included Nasri and no Milner. This was expected I suppose based upon the substitutions against West Brom last Tuesday. But 4-4-2? City do not play that system.
Conversely Roberto Martinez put out a very brave 3-5-2 designed to shackle Aguero in much the same way as West Brom did and to keep City’s heralded playmakers deeper than they would like. Realizing also that Mancini’s line-up offered no protection to Zabaleta and Clichy, he was able to commission McManaman and Espinoza to push City back from wide positions. And it worked!
Right from the start you could see the potential failures of a system put in by Mancini which simply screamed “You’ve got it wrong.” Scharner and Boyce were totally in control at the back giving Tevez and Aguero nothing to work with. Wigan defended narrow, giving Nasri and Silva nothing to work with. They attacked one-out via Kone who held the ball up superbly and brought the wide men into play regularly and quickly. This gave Zaba and Clichy nothing to work with. It was a good job Wigan looked a bit lean up front as nobody really made any runs to join Kone in the first half, otherwise this match would have been over quickly.
Having said that, in defence Kompany and Nastasic looked accomplished and dealt with more or less everything in the first 45 minutes, but they never looked to have weathered the storm, because in the absence of Milner in particular, Espinoza kept coming and on the other flank McManaman started to get a free run and create havoc in the City penalty area.
In the recent league match Martinez gave this a dry run, weighing in on Richards and it nearly worked for him there. Did Mancini not learn from this? How did he expect an unexpected set of tactics to overcome this threat?
Four against five in midfield rarely wins the day. You will recall in the recent derby at Old Trafford it forced the Stretfords to play over the top, back to front football and then try to make up the numbers from midfield. City simply played their normal game but with one missing from this key area and it showed all afternoon.
When the main chance came, to Tevez, Joel Robles made a superb save with his trailing foot and City’s belief almost drained away in that very instant. It was obvious from a very early stage that the ground attack style was not working. Nasri only appeared in short bursts, Silva, a World Cup Winner may as well have stayed at home. Tevez and Aguero were starved of the ball and this should have come home to roost when it could plainly be seen that they were coming deeper looking for it. The simple move would have been to put Tevez in there and leave Aguero to forage alone, pulling defenders around.
At the start of the second half the game opened out a bit and City at last started to look dangerous. Once again Robles and Boyce and Scharner were happy to block anything that came their way and then move the ball out wide to McManaman at every opportunity. Clichy was having a nightmare as he was turned every which way by the pacy Scouser to the extent that he was lucky to get away with a penalty shout at one point.
Zaba was having not only to play his own role, but also cover for other errors and this cost him his ticket when he first “took one for the team” and then towards the end was a bit over-zealous covering a burst created by a terrible pass from Barry, surrendering the ball needlessly on half way.
At the other end Wigan were happy to defend narrow and let City have the ball wide and deep. What use is a steepling cross when your forwards are five-foot-seven? Of course nobody relayed that to Clichy, who every time he got space down there he fired in the type of cross that Dzeko has been looking for all season, but of course he was on the bench.
Did not Mancini see this? Did he not feel that a change of tactic might work? Well yes he did. He took off his main goalscoring threat, Tevez and replaced him with…Rodwell! Explanantions on a postcard please (Or in comments). Ahead of this at least he had the sense to get Nasri off and Milner on. This shored up the City right so Wigan weighed in on Clichy.
A more astute replacement was Martinez taking off Gomez and bringing on the hitherto injured all season Watson. A typical Wigan attack down their right resulted in a corner from which nobody picked out Watson’s free run into the box and equally free header past Hart into the net, with ninety minutes on the clock.
Only now did Mancini bring on Edin Dzeko. With three minutes stoppage time to go.
The disaster was complete and everything I had worried about all day came home to roost. This team selection seemed to reek of over-confidence and maybe another case of Mancini not having prepared his team correctly for a very important day in their lives.
When His Highness Sheikh Mansour took over the Club to rewrite its history, I’m sure getting beaten in a prestige cup final again a team struggling against relegation was not foremost in his mind. The most devastating cup final result since Wimbledon beat Liverpool, Brighton drawing with Stretford’s finest and all.
Khaldoon and Soriano looked very Soriano indeed as they cut dull figures, seemingly unable to belive what they had witnessed as their multi-million pound stars were easily tamed by a team costing in total a slice of what was paid for the likes of Nasri.
Correctly, this will be viewed as a disaster by the City hierarchy. The morning papers already had Mancini up for the guillotine with Malaga’s Manuel Pellegrini waiting in the wings and I can see this happening. There have been key points in the season where Mancini has come up empty. Where his tactics and selections have been a mystery. This will not have gone unnoticed by Soriano and Txiki Bergiristan and a spell in another location might now be waiting around Mancini’s next corner.
Yes, he did bring the good times back to Manchester City, but to regard a major cup final as a cakewalk and lose will not be high up on his CV and it may well be viewed as a final straw, to mirror image his cup final straw men.
I am taking nothing away from Roberto Martinez and his men here. They did their homework, created a plan, stuck to it and won. It doesn’t matter if your team cost practically nothing, you can beat anyone in a one-off match with a proper game plan. The best team won, well done Wigan!
UPCOMING FIXTURES
all times East Manchester
Tu 14 May 20h00 Reading, Madejski Stadium, PL
Su 19 May 16h00 Norwich City, The Etihad, PL
Share this article
